September 27, 2009

Philippians 2.12-18

Sermon Title: Shining Stars

INTRODUCTION

Tackle Box Lures

On her 15th birthday, my daughter opened a package from her mom and her sisters. Out came a beauty case containing many samples of makeup.

"Neat!" I exclaimed. "Your own tackle box!"

My wife calmly explained that it was NOT a tackle box; it was a beauty kit. My daughter proceeded to open it up and show us all the mascara, eye shadow, rouge, and other cosmetics.

At this point I leaned over to my wife and whispered, "I told you it was a tackle box. Just look at all those lures."

I.        This is Dad just having some fun with his daughter and his wife.

          A.       But of course, when you think about it, making up work.

          B.       Joe's wife bought a new line of expensive cosmetics guaranteed to make her look years younger.

                     1.       After a lengthy sitting before the mirror applying the "miracle" products, she asked, "Darling, honestly, what age would you say I am?"

                     2.       Looking over her carefully, Joe replied, "Judging from your skin, twenty; your hair, eighteen; and your figure, twenty five."

                     3.       "Oh, you flatterer!" she gushed.

                     4.       "Hey, wait a minute!" Joe interrupted. "I haven't added them up yet."

II.       Christianity is not about make-up

          A.       It is not so much as to what is on the outside.

          B.       It is about what is on the inside.

          C.       Christianity is about work.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons 2008-2009)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)    (Back to Shultz Home Page)

MAIN BODY:

I.        You are to work out.

          A.       What kinds of tools do you use in your work.

          B.       You have your own tool box.

                     1.       This may not be a physical box.

                     2.       It is the objects, ideas, concepts that you use in your daily life’s work.

                     3.       What kinds of tools do you use.

II.       We have the best tools that one may acquire.

Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), 103.

It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox, full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up, I found that life handed you these rusty, bent, old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said, Do the best you can with these, they will have to do. And mostly, against all odds, they're enough.

          A.       The tools are provided by God

As quoted in Paul J. Wharton, Stories and Parables for Preachers and Teachers (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1986), 21.

A young man was apprenticed to a master artist who produced the most beautiful stained glass windows anywhere. The apprentice could not approach the master's genius, so he borrowed his master's tools, thinking that was the answer. After several weeks, the young man said to his teacher, "I'm not doing any better with your tools than I did with mine." The teacher replied, "So, it's not the tools of the master you need; it's the spirit of the master you need."

          B.       God’s tools are both external and internal.

III.      Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you.

          A.       The tools are provided to strengthen the will to overcome our natural inclinations and weaknesses.

          B.       The tools are provided to strengthen our will to purpose.

          C.       God’s tools are offered to provide for our salvation.

One of those homiletic gems that has stood the test of time is Roy L. Smith's story of his fear of the dark when he was a boy. Late one evening, his father asked him to go to the barn for some tools. Roy begged his father not to send him, admitting he was deathly afraid of the dark. His father put a lantern into his hand. How far can you see, son? As far as the mulberry tree, he replied. Then go to the mulberry tree. When the boy arrived there, his father asked, Now, how far can you see? I can see to the currant bush, said the boy. When the boy arrived at the currant bush, his father asked again: How far can you see from there? This time it was the henhouse. Next it was the hayloft, and finally the barn. And so the boy, step by step, made it to the barn.

          D.       God’s tools include prayer, Bible reading, and going to worship on Sunday morning.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons 2008-2009)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)    (Back to Shultz Home Page)

IV.      Salvation is a rescue operation.

          A.       Think of the rescue of the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt.

          B.       We are also enslaved to the elemental spirits of this world.

          C.       We need to be rescued.

          D.       Paul has been rescued but he needs continual rescuing.

Read Romans 7:14-25a, NRSVA

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. ¹⁵I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. ²²For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, ²³but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

          E.       It is a rescue operation that is continuous in its purpose and operation.

In a modern parable, the story is told of a community of people who lived on a stretch of dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occurred. Eventually, some of the townspeople decided to put some time and effort and money into a rescue operation. A small life-saving station was built and the devoted members of the rescue team kept an ongoing watch over the sea, ready to use their little boat to search for survivors in case of a shipwreck. As the result of this volunteer operation, the town became famous because of the many lives that were saved.

More and more people joined and became part of the team. Soon a new building was erected. It was much larger than the first little building and it was beautifully furnished and decorated. And as more and more amenities were added for the members' pleasure and comfort, the new building was slowly transformed into a kind of clubhouse. As a result, some of the members began to lose interest in the rescue operation.

But then a shipwreck occurred and many survivors were rescued and brought into the clubhouse for first aid. During the period of the operation which lasted for several days, the frenzied activity caused the attractive clubhouse to be considerably marred by such things as bloodstains on the lush carpeting. At the next meeting there was a split in the membership. Most members felt that the life-saving operation was a hindrance to the social life of the organization. Those who disagreed were told that they could build another little station further down the coast. And, as the years went by, history continued to repeat itself. Today, so the story goes, that seacoast has a number of exclusive clubhouses dotting the shore - but no one in the area seems to be concerned with rescue operations.

          F.       There is a wonderful expression of the nature of Congregationalism in a pamphlet that I wrote.

It says: “Each member of a Congregational Church should have the undisturbed right to follow the Word of God according to the dictates of conscience under the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.”

                     1.       This is where the fear and trembling enter in.

                     2.       You can attempt to do this alone, but how do you know if you are enlightened or not.

                     3.       You need the companionship of like-minded people who are on the journey with you.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons 2008-2009)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)    (Back to Shultz Home Page)

V.       The tools that god provides help us to engage in the work without grumbling.

          A.       Who wants to be around a grumbler?

Harleigh Rosenburg, Thoughts along the Way asks the question, "How Expensive Are We to Others?"

He writes about thinking of an acquaintance of years gone by, who might have been a wonderful person, yet actually had few friends.

He always demanded attention for himself; he was jealous and envious; he could not bear for others to be praised unless he himself was commended; he was always being hurt by something said or unsaid; and he carried a perennial grudge against the world.

                     1.       He yearned to be liked and loved, but he was too expensive for Harleigh and his friends.

                     2.       They are like a black hole that absorbs everything and gives back nothing.

          B.       The tools that God provides help to do the work without arguing.

                     1.       Once, I lived next door to a family who were very religious.

                     2.       We had some discussions about the differences between his church and mine.

                     3.       He thought it would be wonderful if I would sit down with his minister and we could discuss our understanding of our beliefs.

                     4.       The first night we came together, the neighbors pastor made the statement that “one of us was right and the other wrong and we are going to prove who it is.”

                     5.       Needless to say we did not discuss, nor did we argue.

                     6.       I learned a lot about my neighbors church.

                     7.       You will never win argument.

                     8.       You may silence the other person with the logic of your rhetoric, but you will not change any mind.

VI.      The purpose of all this is so that you can be a star.

          A.       You are a star in the community of stars.

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons 2008-2009)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)    (Back to Shultz Home Page)

CONCLUSION:

I.        I read this poem, “What I Understood,” by Katha Pollitt in the print version of “The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

When I was a child I understood everything
about, for example, futility. Standing for hours
on the hot asphalt outfield, trudging for balls
I'd ask myself, how many times will I have to perform
this pointless task, and all the others? I knew
about snobbery, too, and cruelty—for children
are snobbish and cruel—and loneliness: in restaurants
the dignity and shame of solitary diners
disabled me, and when my grandmother
screamed at me, "Someday you'll know what it's like!"
I knew she was right, the way I knew
about the single rooms my teachers went home to,
the pictures on the dresser, the hoard of chocolates,
and that there was no God, and that I would die.
All this I understood, no one needed to tell me.
the only thing I didn't understand
was how in a world whose predominant characteristics
are futility, cruelty, loneliness, disappointment
people are saved every day
by a sparrow, a foghorn, a grassblade, a tablecloth.
This year I'll be
thirty-nine, and I still don't understand it.

II.       We may not understand it all, but we can understand, we have the tools, and the author of them.

I’d Rather Have Jesus

I’d Rather Have Jesus is a song written by Rhea F. Miller with the tune written by George Beverly Shea.

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold; I’d rather be His than have riches untold; I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands; I’d rather be led by His nail-pierced hand Than to be the king of a vast domain, Or be held in sin’s dread sway; I’d rather have Jesus than anything This world affords today.

I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause; I’d rather be faithful to His dear cause; I’d rather have Jesus than worldwide fame; I’d rather be true to His holy name Than to be the king of a vast domain, Or be held in sin’s dread sway; I’d rather have Jesus than anything This world affords today.

He’s fairer than lilies of rarest bloom; He’s sweeter than honey from out the comb; He’s all that my hungering spirit needs; I’d rather have Jesus and let Him lead Than to be the king of a vast domain, Or be held in sin’s dread sway; I’d rather have Jesus than anything This world affords today.

          A.       Would you rather have Jesus than silver or gold?

          B.       Would you rather have Jesus than houses or lands?

          C.       Would you rather have Jesus than be the king of a cast domain?

          D.       Would you rather have Jesus than people’s applause?

          E.       Would you rather have Jesus than world-wide fame?

III.      He is all that our hungering spirit needs.

          A.       He helps us to work out.

          B.       He, through the Spirit, is with us an in us to work for his good pleasure.

IV.      I’d rather have Jesus than anything This world affords today.

Amen!

(Top)    (Back to Study Home Page)    (Back to Sermons 2008-2009)
(Back to Sermons Home Page)    (Back to Shultz Home Page)